Monday, September 17, 2012

Architecture Biennale –
Russia - Special Mention. A Special Mention by the jury went to Russiafor ‘i-city’. The ‘i-city’ installation takes a dialectic approach to
Russia’s past, present and future and in the process turns us all into digital
spies. The jury was drawn into this magical mystery tour and beguiled by its
visual presentation.

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Russia – i-city.In the Russian pavilion they have tried to
find an architectural metaphor for connecting the real and the virtual.People today live at the intersection of on-
and off-line; “our common ground” is becoming a cipher for infinite mental
spaces.What will the city of the future
look like, and, in particular, the city of science?The answer is to be found in the Skolkovo
project.For the moment, these are
plans; but their implementation should be completed in 2017.

The
Netherlands – Re-Set. .One single mobile object
occupies the space for three months and emphasizes the building’s unique
qualities. This object flows through the interior, re-configures its
organization and creates multiple rooms along the way. The experience of light,
sound and space are be manipulated so that new perspectives emerge.

Architecture Biennale –
Germany.Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. The
population of Germany is dwindling and aging. A large-scale process of
demographic change is taking place. Working on the existing inventory has long
become a priority, focusing on shrinkage, downsizing, regeneration, conversion
and refurbishment of existing buildings and on closing the gaps in the urban
fabric.

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Germany - Reduce/Reuse/Recycle.Reduce/Reuse/Recycle stands for a successful shift in value from waste to
reusable material. The three R’s form a waste hierarchy in which avoidance
comes first followed by direct reuse and, in third place, recycling which
changes the properties of the material. The same logic may be applied in
setting up a new value system to address existing buildings: the fewer changes
that are made and the less energy used, the better the process.

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Germany.Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. Valuing what exists is
the best starting point for a completely open-minded approach: appreciating
that the dilapidated, the strange and the ordinary are architectural resources
worth taking seriously can open up potential new directions in architecture.
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle shows projects and perspectives by architects who take a
positive, empowering view of existing structures as an inspiration and
motivation for further development.

Architecture Biennale –
Australia.Healthabitat is one of six practices chosen to represent Australia at the
Architecture Biennale. The exhibition is called "Formations" which
aims to give light to unique practice structures in Australian
Architecture. Healthabitat was generated through an Australian Indigenous
health service ambition to improve the health of children aged zero to five
years old. It is now run as a "social business" evolving over more
than 25 years into a practice formation combining health, environment and
design related to, but not focused on, architecture. Led by architect Paul
Pholeros, medical director Dr Paul Torzillo and community director Stephan
Rainow, this formation has shown the potential for architectural skills and
methods to combine with a wide range of other professional and community
groups. Its work has produced better living environments and proven health
benefits for a broad range of non-traditional architectural clients, from the
remote Central Australian desert communities, rural Nepalese villages, to urban
Brooklyn, New York City.

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Australia –
Formations: New
Practices in Australian Architecture.Manager Gregory Norman and director and architect Paul Pholeros of
Healthabitat.Improving complex health
problems requires combined health, environment and design skills. By reforming
a practice around the design, specification and maintenance of housing for the
disadvantaged, Healthabitat shows architects can contribute to work for the
'other' 90 per cent of the world's population.

Architecture Biennale –
Spain. SpainLab is a laboratory of innovation and research.Above. Al Aire (BetweenAir) by SelgasCano an installation that
investigates ways that movable agriculture can blend in the fields of botany
and architecture. The installation is a set of containers that allow plants to
grow in small strata of earth or water. Data will be processed during the
installation with the goal of learning exciting new ways to gain back terrain
for nature.

Architecture Biennale – Serbia.100 Jedan: Sto. “A big white
table, in the rectangular space of the pavilion around which visitors can go
between it and the walls.Sound effects
are created by visitors as they touch it. It is one vs. hundred a possible
metaphor of a common ground? Are we always those who are alone in an endless
plethora of things? Are we alone against everyone or alone with everyone? In
any case, it is clear that an individual shares a common “table” with many
others and is almost always in the common ground, the space which we create for
ourselves."

Architecture Biennale – Olafur Eliasson.Little Sun is a work of art that
works in life.It transforms the light
that is for all of us into light that is for each of us.Little Sun makes light.Designed by Olafur Eliasson and Federik
Ottesen, it is a solar-powered lamp for the 1.6 billion people worldwide who
live off electrical grid.By buying
Little Sun at full price in areas of the world with electricity, you help make
it available for a lower price to communities with no or inconsistent
electricity.It is an artistic endeavor
and a call to action.

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Architect Carlotta de Bevilacqua and lighting entrepeneur Ernesto Gismondi he is wearing an Eliasson
Little Sun around his neck.

-->Lee Sang Leem’s book which features a chapter on Vittorio Gregotti.

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At the Koren Pavilion, outside the exhibition, Walk in Architecture, a
refreshing wild berry cold tea was served by a lady wearing traditional dress.

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Architecture Biennale –
Swistzerland.Miroslav Šik staged in the Swiss Pavilionthe
exhibition «And Now the Ensemble!!!», a striking mural/collage inspired by and
consisting of images of buildings designed by Šik himself and by the
architectural practices of Knapkiewicz & Fickert (Zurich) and Miller &
Maranta (Basel), whom he invited to assist with the project. The mural/collage
is the work of photographer Michael Zirn, who has transformed the Pavilion into
a huge camera oscura, with a sequence of images developed all along the
walls. Miroslav Šik and his associates composed the image files, featuring a
combination of their existing projects, in digital format. They were then
handed over to Michael Zirn, who cunningly transformed them into photographic
negatives and transposed them onto the walls of the Pavilion. Zirn adopted a
very traditional analogue technique: the photographs were developed, however,
not in the classic 20x30cm format but on 280m2 of wall space, to create
probably the largest analogue photograph ever displayed on a wall.

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Swizterland - And Now the Ensemble.Zirn and his
colleagues worked in giornate, as if creating a fresco painting, covering an
area of 25/30 m2 each working day. A light-sensitive emulsion was first applied
to the area of wall concerned and the enlarged image was then projected onto
it. After a given exposure time, the image was developed to achieve the final
result. Working day by day in this way, they have composed this huge analogue
panorama, a virtual city destined to exist only within the walls of the Swiss
Pavilion.